CNN Republican Debate: Final Part

Continuing the post I started yesterday, we continue looking at the CNN New Hampshire Debate. Here is the debate transcript here.

Lets look at some quotes from it. Answers to different subjects, and I will be picking and choosing for space’s sake. Read the transcript for the full story.

The Housing Problem(people up side down, foreclosures)

T. Pawlenty: “Well, the first thing we need to do is get the government out of crony capitalism. We have this alliance between big government, big unions, and certain big bailout businesses. And as Congressman Paul said a few minutes ago, we had politicians in Congress trying to micromanage the housing market, and they created a bubble and they created the mess.”

R. Paul: ” The government shouldn’t be involved. You take the bankruptcies, we’ve been doing a whole lot. We’ve been propping them up. We’ve had the Federal Reserve buy all the illiquid assets, which were worthless, stick it with the taxpayers. The people who’ve made the money when the bubble was being blown up, they’re the ones who got bailed out…You need to get the prices of houses down to clear the market, but they’re trying to keep the prices up. They actually have programs in Washington which stimulating housing. You need to clear the — clear the market and then we can all go back to work. But what we’re doing now is absolutely wrong.”

R. Paul: “You know, if you’re — if you’re an average couple and you paid your entire amount into — into Medicare, you would have put $140,000 into it. And in your lifetime, you will take out more than three times that much…And I would think that if we don’t want to cut any of the medical benefits for children or the elderly, because we have drawn so many in and got them so dependent on the government, if you want to work a transition, you have to cut a lot of money.
And that’s why I argue the case that this money ought to be cut out of foreign welfare, and foreign militarism, and corporate welfare, and the military industrial complex. Then we might have enough money to tide people over.
But some revamping has to occur. What we need is competition. We need to get a chance for the people to opt out of the system. Just — you talk about opting out of Obamacare? Why can’t we opt out of the whole system and take care of ourselves?”

T. Pawlenty: “I’m going to have my own plan, John, that will feature some differences from Congressman Ryan’s plan. It will feature performance pay rather than just volume pay to hospitals and clinics and providers. It will allow Medicare to continue as an option, but it’ll be priced against various other options that we’re going to offer people, as well, and some other things.”

N. Gingrich: ” If you’re dealing with something as big as Medicare and you can’t have a conversation with the country where the country thinks what you’re doing is the right thing, you better slow down…Congressman Tom Price has a very good bill in that would allow private contracting so those people who want to voluntarily could contract with their doctor or their hospital in addition to Medicare, and it would be outside the current system and it would relieve the pricing pressure on the current system. We did a study called “Stop Paying the Crooks.” We think you can save $70 billion to $120 billion in Medicare and Medicaid annually by not paying crooks.”

R. Santorum: “What President Obama — let me finish, please — what President Obama has done is he put in, in the Obamacare bill, the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Ladies and gentlemen, seniors, Medicare is going to be cut, starting in 2014, by the federal government, and it’s going to be rationing of care from the top down. What Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum want to do, which is not radical, which is take a program, Medicare prescription drugs, that is 41 percent under budget, because seniors are involved in controlling costs, and apply it all to Medicare. It is the right approach for Medicare.”

H. Cain: “The reason we’re in the situation we are today with Medicare and Social Security is because the problem hasn’t been solved. We can no longer rearrange it. We’ve got to restructure those programs. And the Paul Ryan approach I totally support.”

H. Cain: ” Let’s fix the problem and that is to restructure Social Security. I support a personal retirement account option in order to phase out the current system. We know that this works. It worked in the small country of Chile when they did it 30 years. That payroll tax had gotten up to 27 percent for every dollar that the worker made. I believe we can do the same thing. That break point would approximately 40 years of age. Now, young people realize they still got to contribute to the current system for those people that are on Social Security, that are near Social Security. Here’s — let me give you one another example where this approach has worked. The city of Galveston, they opted out of the Social Security system way back in the ’70s. And now, they retire with a whole lot more money. Why? For a real simple reason — they have an account with their money on it. What I’m simply saying is we’ve got to restructure the program using a personal retirement account option in order to eventually make it solvent.”

Debt Ceiling

M. Romney: “What we say to America is: at some point, you hit a wall. At some point, people around the world say, “I’m not going to keep loaning money to America to pay these massive deficits pay for them because America can’t pay them back and the dollar is not worth anything anymore.” In that circumstance, we saddled our future — the future of our kids in a way that is just unacceptable.”

M. Bachmann: ” I’ve already voted no on raising the debt ceiling in the past. And unless there are serious cuts, I can’t…So, what we need to do both, from the Congress and president, he needs to direct his treasury secretary: pay the interest on the debt first, then we won’t have a failure of our full faith and credit from their prioritized spending. We have to have serious spending cuts.”

Separation of Church and State

R. Santorum: “I think the key to the success of this country, how we all live together, because we are a very diverse country — Madison called it the perfect remedy — which was to allow everybody, people of faith and no faith, to come in and make their claims in the public square, to be heard, have those arguments, and not to say because you’re not a person of faith, you need to stay out, because you have strong faith convictions, your opinion is invalid. Just the opposite — we get along because we know that we — all of our ideas are allowed in and tolerated. That’s what makes America work.”

R. Paul: ” I think faith has something to do with the character of the people that represent us, and law should have a moral fiber to it and our leaders should. We shouldn’t expect us to try to change morality. You can’t teach people how to be moral. But the Constitution addresses this by saying — literally, it says no theocracy. But it doesn’t talk about church and state. The most important thing is the First Amendment. Congress shall write no laws — which means Congress should never prohibit the expression of your Christian faith in a public place.”

Gay Marriage, State or Federal decision

M. Bachmann: “Well, I do believe in the 10th Amendment and I do believe in self-determination for the states. I also believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I carried that legislation when I was a senator in Minnesota, and I believe that for children, the best possible way to raise children is to have a mother and father in their life…I’m running for the presidency of the United States. And I don’t see that it’s the role of a president to go into states and interfere with their state laws.”

CAIN: State’s decision.

PAWLENTY: I support a constitutional amendment to define marriage between a man and woman. I was the co-author of the state — a law in Minnesota to define it and now we have courts jumping over this.

PAUL: The federal government shouldn’t be involved. I wouldn’t support an amendment. But let me suggest — one of the ways to solve this ongoing debate about marriage, look up in the dictionary. We know what marriage is all about. But then, get the government out of it. Why doesn’t it go to the church? And why doesn’t it to go to the individuals? I don’t think government should give us a license to get married. It should be in the church.

ROMNEY: Constitutional.

GINGRICH: Well, I helped author the Defense of Marriage Act which the Obama administration should be frankly protecting in court. I think if that fails, at that point, you have no choice except to (ph) constitutional amendment.

SANTORUM: Constitutional amendment. Look, the constitutional amendment includes the states. Three-quarters of the states have to — have to ratify it. So the states will be involved in this process. We should have one law in the country with respect to marriage. There needs to be consistency on something as foundational as what marriage is.

BACHMANN: John, I do support a constitutional amendment on — on marriage between a man and a woman, but I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law.

Eminent Domain

R. Paul: “No. We — we shouldn’t have that power given to the government where they can take private land and transfer it to a private industry. The eminent domain laws are going to vary in different states, but we have the national eminent domain laws. It was never meant to take it from some people, private owners, and then take it and give it to a corporation because it’s going to help that locality. And this goes back to the basic understanding of property rights. Property and free society should be owned by the people, and it shouldn’t be regulated to death by the governments, whether it’s Washington, D.C., or local governments. Right now, we really don’t own our land. We just pay rent on our land and we listen to all these regulations. So I would say that courts should get out of the way, too. They should not have this right to take land from individuals to provide privileges for another group.”

ROMNEY: “Well, I don’t believe that land should be taken — the power of government to give to a private corporation. And so the right of eminent domain is a right which is used to foster a public purpose and public ownership for a road, highways, and so forth. And so my view is, if land is going to be taken for purposes of a private enterprise, that’s the wrong way to go.”

Ethanol

SANTORUM: Yeah, I actually had proposed that we can phase out the ethanol subsidy, which is the blender’s credit, over a five-year period of time. I also proposed, as part of helping him in that transition — one other thing. I also phase out the tariff on ethanol coming into this country over that five-year period of time. One of the issues for the ethanol industry is distribution networks. So I would take half of that credit every year, 4.5 cents, and use it to help expand distribution for E-85 in other areas of the country. And that all would be shut down in five years. And I say that because I think the ethanol industry — I voted against ethanol subsidies my entire time in Congress. But I will tell you, the ethanol industry has matured greatly, and I think they are actually capable of surviving and doing quite well going forward under that — under that plan.

And it keeps going onto Afghanistan, Libya, etc. I skipped some topics, look at the transcript. Whew!

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My goal is to purposefully guide you to a thoughtful Christianity where you can stand assertively stand for Christ. This blog is for those who are unsure and want to live for more, and not sure how. It's for those who want to go deeper. If you’re curious about Christianity, living it, proclaiming it, defending it, and growing in Christ then follow my journey in Christ. Come along as we do this.

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